It took me a while to figure out how to vote (I wasn’t asked for my Facebook anything), but I really like the gold one better. That pic more closely represents the book. The hot sand, the pitiless ambience – the blue looks too peaceful.

Both are pretty and it is a hard decision to make, the forest where she is led by the bunny/cat and has an interesting conversation. The house could represent several things through out the story in Magic Slays. But the Kate in the golden toned cover seems more aggressive and more Kate, the Kate in the blue appears to be gentle and frail, definitely not Kate. My vote goes with the golden shaded cover merely based on the pose of the model who represents Kate better (in my opinion of course).

I agree, I couldn’t vote without going on Facebook, as I understood the link I clicked on. I clicked on the Gold picture and saw that someone had commented Curran was too small, I agree but otherwise prefer the Gold because it indicates that its ‘urban’ for the genre.

I can’t vote either since I don’t have a Facebook account (which is fine with me). :p

My opinion? I would choose the blue cover. I agree with everyone else that Curran is way to small in the gold cover. Now, if I could influence the French publisher, I would put how Kate is standing in the gold cover onto the blue cover. No Curran in the picture unless he is huge. The urban setting could be put on the blue cover (to make it look like it’s night instead of a dusty day (which is what the gold cover looks like to me)).

Why can’t cover artists figure out the difference between a saber and a katana? Out of curiosity, are cover artists /illustrators supposed to familiarize themselves with the work they are illuminating? If so, to what extent would be expected? Do they read some of the book? Get a list of salient points? Always wondered about that. (Going back to Frank Frazetta covers for Conan and Pellucidar series).

Stupid corporate network won’t let me go vote. I’ll have to remember to vote from home. Ilona, did they mention how long the voting is open? Or is that mentioned on the voting page that I can’t get to at the moment?

I’m partial to the blue myself, if anyone is curious. ‘Cause I know you’re all waiting for my opinion. 😛

Although I would enjoy the looks on my brothers and nephews faces if I told them I finally joined Facebook, not so I could communicate with them, but so I could vote for a book cover in a different country. Man, that’s a tempting thought.

There is a magical forest hinting at great adwentures and a girl. She is going to enter the forest but she is afraid. At least she looks afraid next to the woman in the second picture. The woman is great heroine. She is so strong and fit and she is ready for … sightseeing? there is so much sunshine I am telling you She and Curran are going on holliday. Or maybe they are going shopping. I can´t tell the background is so bland.

They’re both very pretty covers. Which is dispiriting, because Kate is not a very pretty girl. These two are very slender and young looking. I loved the cover (Magic Bleeds) where you had this barbarian looking woman. She was not pretty. She was striking – and beautiful – but not pretty. And she looked like she knew where the pointy end of the sword was meant to go.

This is just me bemoaning the fact that there aren’t more kick you in the teeth looking women on book covers.

Well, the argument of the bread companies when it came to bleaching their flour was “our customers wouldn’t buy our bread if it wasn’t so white”.

Actually, the customers were very happy to buy less than snow white bread, especially if it meant not having to ingest potentially harmful chemicals.

Most of the women who read Kate Daniels actively enjoy her being so kick ass. So if the covers represented Kate (mercenary, sword fighter, headbutt you in the face kinda woman) rather than a girl closer in age to Julie (who would probably also chew up the girl on the cover)…who knows? Perhaps more people would buy the books, rather than dismiss them as “fluff”.

Would be an interesting topic for a consumer survey, perhaps? We could line up all the KD covers and ask people to pick their favourites. :p

I decided to stretch my old French gray cells, and since when I plugged it into Google Translate and got what I’d intended, I guess I diudn’t make any major mistakes, though I may bed off on a noun-gender or two. What I posted at the link:
Je dirais que les couleurs plus chauds conviennent meilleur avec Kate — et clairement avec Curran, qui mérite avoir sa propre présence sur la couverture! Aussi, quand même que la version bleu est très belle, elle parait moins distinctive. —— Si j’ai commis des erreurs syntactiques, pardonnez-moi, s’il vous plait. Mes classes à l’université étaient il y a beacoup d’années!
Translate results:
I would say that the warmer colors fit better with Kate — and clearly with Curran, who deserves to have her own presence on the cover! Also, even though the blue version is very beautiful, it seems less distinctive. — — if I have made syntactic errors, please forgive me. My classes at the university were many years ago!

I do agree with everyone pointing out that Curran’s not supposed to be just an “ordinary”, “small” lion.

Totally off topic but I just saw this http://www.globalyell.org/blog/scythians about an exhibit of the Scythians at the British Museum. I’d never heard of them until Kate Daniels found one and brought her home ~ I’m looking forward to exploring the online exhibit since I can’t get there in person, and I thought some of the other members of the BDH might also be interested.